Users & Roles

One of the great features of Princeton Site Builder is the ability to control how and what users can access on your site by assigning specific roles to them.

Users Dashboard

Site Admins can view a list of all users on their site by clicking the main Users item in the admin toolbar.

This dashboard shows a list of all user accounts on your site, sorted by the users that logged in most recently at the top.

Users Without a Role

Some sites may have a small or large number of user accounts that have no role. These users are not displayed in the Users dashboard by default, but you can view them by checking the Show users with no role checkbox at the top of the dashboard and pressing the Filter button.

Users dashboard with arrow pointing to checkbox for "Show users with no roles"

It may be that you do not recognize these users, and don't remember adding their accounts. The most common reason they appear is because someone with a Princeton Net ID attempted to access a Webform that is configured to require authentication. When someone attempts to access these protected webforms, it prompts to log in with their Net ID and will create a basic user account for them after authentication. This is just a side effect of how the access control system works. You do not need to be alarmed about these users. As long as they have no roles, they have no editorial access to your site.

Adding Users

Step 1: Add a User

Log in to your website.
From the administrative toolbar, select Manage > Users > Add CAS User(s)
Enter their netID in the CAS username(s) box. You may enter more than one netID -- one per line. Do not enter full email address, enter only their netID.
Click Create new account(s).

Step 2: Assign a User Role

Click Users
Check the Show users with no roles checkbox and press Filter
Find the user account you just added in the list. You can use the search filters at the top as well. Next to the user name you just added, Click Edit
Select the appropriate role for the user. See Summary of Available Permissions Based on Role below.
Click Save

Standard User Roles

Site Admin
Content Manager
Content Author
Reader
CSS Manager*
Webform Submission Viewer*

Note that in addition this these standard roles, WDS may have created custom roles for your site, so you may have more options.

* The CSS Manager can only be applied to users by WDS. This role grants supplemental permissions to content managers and site admins for managing custom style definitions.

* The Webform Submission Viewer role is only available for sites that have enabled the Webforms A collection of features or functionality that can be enabled on sites. WDS has made several optional modules available to site administrators to enable on their site. For example, the "News" module enables the News content type and provide a News List Block for displaying news on a page. . This role grants access to view all webform submissions for all webforms.

Summary of available Permissions based on Role

Site Admin

Site administrator is the highest role WDS assigns to users Site Builder. People with this role can configure site information, enable optional modules, manage all content, manage all other users, and more.

In addition to the Content Manager role, this role can

Add custom CSS to enhance the design of their site
Modify the patterns used for generating automatic URL aliases
Enable and configure optional modules
Create, edit, and delete other users
Modify theme settings

Content Manager

A Content Manager has complete control over content on the site.

In addition to the Content Author role, this role can:

Create/edit/delete/publish/unpublish any content items
View/delete/revert any content revisions
Create/edit/delete all media, documents, and reusable custom blocks
Create/edit/delete all menu items
Create/edit/delete taxonomy terms
Administer all URL aliases and URL redirects on the site
Manage the footer content and layout
Schedule news & events to be published
Manage all webforms

Content Author

A Content Author is the most limited content authoring role.

In addition to the Reader role, this role can:

Create new content items (News, Events, Pages, etc), but cannot publish them or create menu links for them*
View and edit any published and unpublished content (but cannot unpublish existing content)
View all revisions for existing content, but cannot revert to them or delete them
Edit Layout for all Page content items
Create new media and documents, but cannot edit or delete media and documents that they did not create
Create, edit, and delete their own Webforms

*An exception is Alerts - content authors cannot create alerts, even unpublished ones.

Reader

A Reader represents a site visitor who can see the site in maintenance mode. This role is typically reserved for users who need to review the site before the site has launched. This is the only permission they have.

Removing (Canceling) Users

Instead of completely removing a user, it's typically better to block that user and remove their roles instead. If you really want to delete a user, find the user on the main Users page, click Edit, and then click Cancel User at the bottom of the form. Follow the instructions, but be careful not to select the option that deletes all the content the user created unless you're positive that's what you want to do.

Guest accounts

For a non-Princeton-affiliated person to access sites for editing purposes, it is recommended that Guest Account Provisioning (GAP) accounts be created so that passwords are maintained externally maintained.